Help!
by Briana Rose
Summary: Harry finds an odd serenity with a bike next to a polluted pond with a little help from a certain former teacher, of course. A Beatles Songfic, second in the series.


Disclaimer: I don't own HP or the song "Help!". They are owned by J. K. Rowling and the Beatles and probably lots of other people who have really good lawyers. I say to them: please don't sue. I don't have any money. 

A/N: When I wrote _She's Leaving Home_, the first my little Beatles songfic series, I really never considered doing a continuation because I simply didn't think it good enough. But then I got the urge to do a fic on Harry dealing with Sirius's death, and setting it to "Help!" just seemed a natural thing to do. I plan to do one on each of the trio, She's Leaving Home was about Hermione, this one's about Harry, and the next one will be about Ron, most likely to "Carry That Weight." I like this one a little better than my first one, but if you guys could tell me what you think I would really appreciate it.

Help! 

(Lennon/McCartney)  
  
_"Help, I need somebody  
Help, not just anybody  
Help, you know I need someone, help._

Harry stood with his back to the setting sun, staring at the wreck of a bicycle sprawled in front of him. Many memories flooded to him at the sight of it, bittersweet ones, he supposed. 

"When I was younger so much younger than today  
I never needed anybody's help in any way

The need for a bike became apparent to him almost at once after he'd started school with Dudley. He was fast on his feet, sure, but he couldn't outrun a group of long-legged boys forever. Besides, the good hiding place he'd found, a secluded park/wood by Wisteria Walk, was best reachable by bicycle, it was a ways away. (It was a good hiding place because most of the neighborhood boys, Dudley included, thought it was haunted. It was, Harry had discovered, but not by ghosts, but rather teenage couples seeking a good place to snog.)

So Harry had begged his aunt and uncle and was finally allowed to take a very rusty old bike from Mrs. Figg's garden shed. It was an older make, probably one that had been used to deliver papers in the 50s. He remembered standing in the weedy plant life in Mrs. Figg's garden, staring admirably at the bike, not because it was particularly beautiful, but because it was _his_. Possession had never felt so good. 

He discovered, after he had escaped Mrs. Figg (she seemed to think that he should have a cup of tea with her to repay her for her trouble), that the feat may prove more daunting than he had imagined. He kept on flying off, landing on the pavement like some dreadful Harry-pancake amid jeers from any of Dudley's gang watching from the sidewalk. At last he got the hang of it and sped off to the park/wood any chance he could. There he felt he could escape what bothered him, retreat from the worries that would niggle at his brain like so many termites. He could take it into the wood and pedal hard, so hard that sometimes he felt (or rather wished) that he was flying. 

"But now these days are gone, I'm not so self-assured

Now I find I changed my mind. I've opened up the doors.

Then he'd left for Hogwarts and forgotten everything about that old bike along with most else about his previous life. That was how he felt sometimes, that someone had cleaved his entire existence into pre- and post-Hogwarts. 

Now his life had been cleaved again, this time by an event of almost equal importance, he thought. The event had left him shattered, almost, as though the giant hand that chopped his life into parts had also decided to slice up some of him. Pre- and post-Sirius, he thought grimly. Pre- and post-prophecy.

"Help me if you can, I'm feeling down  
And I do appreciate you being round

Suddenly, a powerful urge overtook him to run, run as far as he could from any and everything. He stared again at the decrepit bike in front as thought battling with himself. That morning, two weeks after he'd returned from Kings' Cross, the bike had resurfaced in his memories. He went to the garage to search for it. The garage was the only place belonging to the Dursley's that was not kept in a perpetual state of immaculate neatness. He had emerged from his search dusty but successful, pleased that the Dursely's had not junked it over the years.

A firecracker went off in him abruptly, and he leapt on the bike. It was now far too small for him but he didn't seem to notice. He sped off toward the wood, not wanting to find anything but the solitude he used to get there.

Whizzing by the sign marked _Wisteria Copse_, (which was marked with graffiti with everything from drawings of naked women to T. S. Eliot poems), he went onto the bike path that snaked through the wood and eventually led to a deep slope with a dirty pond at the bottom.

Thump, thump, thump. His knees hit the handlebars with an almost comforting rhythm. 

Thumpthumpthumpthumpthump. The rhythm increased now, causing minor pain in his kneed but Harry couldn't be troubled to notice. If he could just transfer to his feet that feeling of anguish he would not have to express it with his voice. 

Old memories were revisited once again as he flew off the seat and into the dirt. A Harry-pancake once more. 

"Help me get my feet back on the ground  
Won't you please, please help me?

And now my life has changed in oh so many ways  
My independence seems to vanish in the haze

Groaning, he sat up. He had now reached the edge of the copse. He had landed on the edge of the steep slope that led down to the pond. Sometime during his little flight his glasses had been hit. They flew off his face and landed halfway down the hill, where they slid the rest of the way down to that gross, mucky pond. He was about to go retrieve them when a twig snapped behind him in the woods.

He spun around and reached in his pocket for his wand, leaping to his feet at once. The encounters he had had in the forest would never be classified as _dangerous_, more just _awkward. _(Like the time he had been wandering through the trees aimlessly and heard several slurping noises up ahead. He tried to sneak around them, but managed somehow to burst right into a Muggle couple. A _male_ Muggle couple. He had muttered his apologies and left hurriedly.) He had no desire to repeat any of these experiences, so he didn't move. The thought that the noise could be from something more threatening nagged at his mind.

So when Professor Lupin stepped out of the trees, brushing his Muggle clothes free of twigs, Harry couldn't help but be a bit surprised.

"You're awfully hard to track down, you know that, Harry?"

Harry was slightly flabbergasted. "Professor? What are you--," then he stopped. What else would Lupin be here for? He was surprised to just see Lupin, however, considering the entourage that had accompanied him last summer. 

Professor Lupin must have seen the inquisitive look on Harry's face (he was very good at that) and he explained. "We've permission for a Portkey this year, Harry. I suggested that only one of us accompany you to London. So we'll go back to the house and get your things, then I'll get the Portkey. By the way, aren't you supposed to stay close to Privet Drive?" His look was of mild disapproval.

Harry shrugged. "Just…needed a bike ride."

"Hmm," said Lupin. "Haven't done so for awhile, have you?"

"Why do you say that?" asked Harry defensively. 

Lupin pointed to the splayed bike. "I saw you fall."

"Oh." Now he felt embarrassed. Now Lupin must think he could fall off bikes as easy as pie as well as get his godfather killed. Bitterly, he explained what happened to his glasses.

"I'll get them, Harry," he said, taking out his wand.

"No, don't do that. There are Muggles around here, shouldn't like it if they saw you."

Conceding to the fact, Lupin watch Harry slide his way precariously down the hill to the dirty brown pond, where he dug around in the weeds and cattails for the glasses.

Several hundred yards away, on the other side of the pond, a shaggy black dog, sheepdog by the look of him, launched out of the wood. It had a swaggering gait to it as it ambled down the hill…right towards Harry. Lupin realized with a jolt that the dog was foaming at the mouth. That'd be a story, wouldn't it? Harry Potter survives five separate attacks from Voldemort but is done in by a rabid dog. Quickly, Lupin took out his wand and Stunned it. Lupin had a good aim and the dog went down without much trouble. He jogged down to Harry, who had frozen to the spot when he'd seen the dog.

"Thanks. That was the neighbors' dog. He ran away a couple weeks ago. Must have gotten rabies from something in the woods here."

"Must have. Are you ready to go Harry?" He felt jumpy. The rabid dog, while it probably wasn't anymore that that, a mangy stupid dog, had left him nervous and he wanted to get Harry to Grimmauld Place as soon as possible.

"Yeah, hold on." He wiped his retrieved glasses on his shirt (they'd landed in the mud). "You know, for a second there I…thought it was him."

The words seemed to have a powerful effect on Lupin. All urgency was swept from his voice in his next words.

"Y-you did." That wasn't a question, but it sounded like one.

"Yes."

At once, seeing that look on his former teacher's face, Harry felt the guilt stab at him again. Had he been naïve enough to think that he was the only one who was mourning in the slightest at the death of his godfather? He supposed. He'd been so consumed with himself that he'd never thought how Lupin would feel after the death of his best friend. He'd never stopped to ponder that his stupid actions had affected someone else as well.

"I'm sorry," he muttered suddenly. Then he felt surprised as Lupin looked. Had he really said that _out loud_? 

"Sorry? What are you sorry about Harry?"

He drew in a sharp breath. Now that he'd said it, things seemed to be spilling out of him, things he'd been working to keep in that were leaking like sand in an hourglass. 

"But every now and then I feel so insecure

"I—it's my fault, Professor. Blame it on me. I shouldn't have—I'm always--,"

"I know that I just need you like I've never done before.

"Harry. You can't honestly think that of yourself. You must realize what you are, Harry."

"I know what the hell I am!" said Harry suddenly, his voice full of bitterness. "I'm the stupid kid who's most likely going to end up being the ruin of the entire wizarding world. That's what I am. 'The Boy Who Lived,' is that what you mean? What the hell did I do to deserve that, eh? I'm sick of the title, Professor. I'm sick of most of them."

Silence. And then:

"That's not what I meant, Harry. What I meant was what you thought you were to him."

That surprised Harry. Before he could answer, Lupin spoke again in the voice people use when reminiscing on memories from long ago.

"He always wanted a son, did you know that? I'm sure he enjoyed his bachelorhood, I know he did, in fact, I spent it with him. But he did want a child, I think. That's why he might have been a tiny bit jealous of James. We did used to joke that he was a good candidate for forced sterilization, but really, I think he did want someone. Something other than just we Marauders.

"It's funny Harry, when I think about it. I stuck my head in the kitchen this morning because I expected him to be there like he always was." Lupin's voice was low and gravelly now. "But he wasn't."

"How is that funny?"

"It's a bit like something I read in a Muggle book about people who'd lost a foot or a hand in a war: sometimes, even years after, they still honestly believe that the lost appendage is there. When they find themselves trying to touch or reach for something with it they think it's a bit comical. I suppose if you've lost your hand you've got to think _something's_ funny, huh?" 

"I suppose."

_  
  
"When I was younger, so much younger than today _

"Sirius is one person I always thought would be there. Even when he was in Azkaban, I expected him to saunter through the doorway and make some joke or other. I didn't think he could really be gone. Well, I suppose he wasn't gone then, but as good as gone in my mind. 

"I never needed anybody's help in any way

"Now, Harry, I dunno. Things feel so different. He really is gone. Even his mother knows it. She was laughing about this morning when I left."

"But now these days are gone, I'm not so self assured  
Now I find I've changed my mind and opened up the doors.

Something so painful went through Harry's chest that he had to look away from Lupin because his eyes were overbright and something was stuck in his throat.

_  
  
Help me if you can, I'm feeling down _

That's how it was that two men sat by a dirty lake trying to conceal from one another that they each of them was close crying. Half-men, I suppose, because one of them was part wolf and part man and the other a boy who was learning to become one the hard way.

_  
  
And I do 'preciate you being round _

"He did love you, though, Harry. And the wonderful thing about it was that, despite whatever faults you think you have, you had a brilliant capacity to love him back. That what makes you good, Harry. That's why you're the Boy Who Lived."

_  
  
Help me, get my feet back on the ground _

"Now are you ready to go?"

Harry nodded. "Yes," he said finally. "I think I am ready."

Perhaps he was, perhaps he wasn't, but Harry Potter suddenly thought that, maybe, just maybe, he could go. He could stay here, he reflected, stay in the place where he'd been a child and remember the past and never face the future. But he couldn't stand that, for some reason. He had to go on, not alone, he knew. Never alone. 

_  
  
Won't you please, please help me, help me? _


End file.
